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Tall Bugbane

Actaea

elata var. elata

A member of the family Ranunculaceae (“buttercups”), this species was formerly identified under the genus Cimicifuga. Members of the genus Actaea are also known by the common name “baneberry”, a group of plants whose waxy shiny red or white berries are highly toxic and cause damage to cardiac tissue when consumed by mammals, but are not toxic to birds which consume and disperse the seeds through their droppings.

Height up to 2 m. Plants feature large compound leaves and numerous (50 to 900), tiny white flowers clustered on branched bottlebrush-like flower spikes (racemes). The alternate leaves are divided into threes, with 9-17 lobed leaflets, each up to 18 cm long. The flowers of tall bugbane lack petals and instead attract pollinators with numerous showy white stamens. Each flower is surrounded by five tiny sepals. Unlike other members of the genus Actaea, fruits are green pod-like structures (up to 1 cm long) that remain on the plant long after flowering and split open in fall or winter to release about a dozen reddish-brown seeds.

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Credits

First edition prepared in 2010 by Pamela Zevit RPBio for the South Coast Conservation Program (SCCP) with Matt Fairbarns, in partnership with: International Forest Products (Interfor), Capacity Forestry (CapFor). Original funding was made possible through the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI)

This project was undertaken with the financial support of the Government of Canada. Ce projet a été réalisé avec l’appui financier du Gouvernement du Canada. Every effort has been made to ensure content accuracy. Comments or corrections should be directed to the South Coast Conservation Program: info@sccp.ca. Only images sourced from “creative commons” sources (e.g. Wikipedia, Flickr, U.S. Government) can be used without permission and for non-commercial purposes only. All other images have been contributed for use by the SCCP and its partners/funders only.

SOUTH COAST CONSERVATION PROGRAM

French translation of SCCP original content available upon request.

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